My name is Ashley Swanson and I offer photography and pet grooming services in Kirkland Lake Ontario, Canada and area. Travel is a possibility so, if you have any questions please feel free to contact me with the contact button on the upper left. I specialize in pet photography and grooming due to being an animal lover. They can be challenging to photograph and groom but, also a lot of fun. I do studio work as well as outdoor. My love for photography started after I started to volunteer at my local animal rescue (info about this rescue in the animal rescue button on upper left).
I've always wanted to be involved with an animal rescue growing up so, when one was in Kirkland Lake I decided to look into how I could volunteer. I ended up fostering a little kitten about 5-6 months old named Quincy. I fostered him for about three days and took photos/videos of him and sent it to one of the main volunteers. She ended up posting those on their Facebook page and he was adopted pretty much instantly. He certainly wasn't easy to give to his new family since of course you do get attached to them but, I was also very happy he finally found a great forever home. I decided to keep fostering due to the joy of helping these pets find homes. I kept doing the same thing; photos/videos and they were all getting adopted relativity fast. I was able to help animals find homes that were otherwise sitting in cages for months and who knows how much longer. I notice the demand for photos and using social media as a tool to give these homeless, helpless animals a voice so to speak. It gave them all an opportunity to be showcased so many people would be able to see them and either want to help in some way as well or, were able to rescue and adopt these animals or knew someone that would like to.
My parents had an older Canon camera that they had bought but never got around to using it much. They decided to offer it to me to take photos of the rescue animals. I decided to try it though it was at the time harder to use then just a simple phone photo. Through practice, research, and advice from both local (HUGE thank you to awesome local photographer Perry Kong! His website: http://perrykong.com/) and online fellow photographers, I was able to improve and my love for photography and wanting to learn more grew with it. Photography like most skills, you always end up learning more and more the longer you practice.
I am now the volunteer photographer for the rescue. i take photos and groom most of the adoptable animals and post on social media. I also am the webmaster and creator (with the help from my mom!) of my local rescue's website. I also help with some of the inquires, adoptions and other miscellaneous duties. If you ever wanted to volunteer with an animal rescue certainly advise you to consider it! It can be a lot of work but, if you love animals very rewarding!